Wal Mart Case

1. RETAIL INDUSTRY USE CASE

Email Subscriber Analysis vs. Connection Engine, in partnership with e Data Source, compared attributes of consumers who receive email communications from Amazon and Walmart. This brief examines the demographics, interests and purchasing habits of Amazon and Walmart email subscribers. E Data Source’s panel of 800,000email users was profiled using Connection Engine’s Insight Connect customer intelligence platform to measure key similarities and differences between Amazon and Walmart email subscribers. Panel members were segmented based on their subscription status: those who receive email from Walmart but not Amazon, and those who receive emails from Amazon but not Walmart. The analysis also includes e Data Source’s ecommerce tracking capabilities to analyze the online purchases of Amazon and Walmart and compare how these purchases relate to the demographics of their subscriber base. Comparisons are presented as relative index values. An index is a way to examine the relative relationship between two values, for example an index value of 150 for Amazon indicates that Amazon has a value 1.5 times more or 50% higher than Walmart on that particular measure. A similar index value for Walmart indicates that Walmart has a higher value compared to Amazon on this measure.

2. Can Best Buy weather the storm? I think so, although it may look different in the future. In fact, the stock may be a buy for investors right now. To see why, here's a look at the challenges that have investors nervous, and why Best Buy should overcome them. In this environment, Best Buy looks like a paintball target. Most of its 1,317 U.S. stores, 1,100 of them, are big box. But the Blue Shirts are on the case. In a recent meeting with analysts, Best Buy announced plans to reduce the square footage of its big-box stores by 10% over three to five years. The chain will also lease out floor space to other retailers, says BB&T Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba.

The...